We can't quite believe that 2019 is flying by as quickly as it is, but here we are, firmly in March. The good news is that this gives us a chance to look back at all of the excellent games which arrived on Switch throughout February for our eShop Selects awards.

These awards aim to celebrate the best of Nintendo's digital store, giving some love and attention to the games that could so easily be missed in the Switch's ever-growing library.

So, let's get started! Here are the best Switch eShop games of February 2019!

Honourable Mentions:

While these titles didn't quite make our top three this month, they're still certainly worth checking out.

Taking third spot this month is City of Brass, a procedurally-generated action title which secured an incredibly healthy 9/10 from us in our review. We said that "while some of its procedural generation can sometimes make for an unnecessarily challenging experience, City of Brass more than makes up for it with the sheer creativity you can have exploring its Arabian Nights-themed map", calling it "one of the most entertaining roguelikes" on Switch. If you're into that kind of thing, this is well worth checking out.

Next up is the wonderful Wargroove. Just sneaking into this month's awards with a 1st February release date, Wargroove is a strategy title that we think even Intelligent Systems (Fire Emblem, Advance Wars, need we say more) would be proud of. Aside from praising it as being one of the best strategy titles available on the console in our review, we fell in love with this one thanks to its "deep and diverse strategy gameplay, ridiculous amounts of replayability, and charming presentation". Seriously, go and play it.

Comfortably taking top spot this month, though, is Nintendo Switch Online's first exclusive newbie, Tetris 99. No members of the team - or indeed anyone in the world, we imagine - would ever have expected this, but wow are we glad it has arrived on Switch. Another title to secure a 9/10 review from us, Tetris 99 has had practically every member of staff hooked thanks to its new battle royale twist. We're pretty pleased we've managed to even put this article together, to be honest.

If you haven't tried this one yet and have a Switch Online subscription, we promise it'll be worth your time.

What was your favourite eShop game last month? (242 votes)

Tetris 99

49%

Wargroove

20%

City of Brass

1%

Ape Out

5%

Devil Engine

1%

Final Fantasy IX

13%

Q.U.B.E. 2

2%

Iron Crypticle

1%

OlliOlli: Switch Stance

0%

Observer

2%

The King's Bird

0%

Something else (comment below)

How we decide our eShop Selects top three: As we reach the end of every month, the Nintendo Life staff vote on their favourite titles from a list of games selected by the editorial team. To qualify for this list, these games must have been released primarily as a digital Nintendo Switch eShop title in that particular month, and must have been reviewed on Nintendo Life; we select the qualifying games based on their review scores.

Staff are then asked to vote for three games that they think deserve to sit right at the very top of that list; first choice gets 3 points, second choice gets 2 points, and third choice gets 1 point. These votes are then tallied to create a top three list, with the overall winner taking that month's top prize.

Ryan’s that annoying kind of guy in multiplayer games - you know the one, the kind of person that throws a temper tantrum if he can’t be Yoshi in Mario Kart or gets stuck with the controller with the dodgy button. Yeah, that kind.

Just Tetris for me this month. I haven't bought any Switch game since December and I only have a little over $20 on the eshop that I left there just in case some kind of tempting discount appeared. And actually, Sega Genesis Collection and Starlink, games that have been sitting on top of my wishlist, are both discounted in Europe. Since they are so different games, I can't really decide which one to pick up and knowing myself, I am just going to keep deciding until the offer ends.

Voted something else as I loved Tokyo School Life the most from last month. Really enjoyed this visual novel a lot more than expected, and loved all three girls' routes, it outcome of the story made me pretty happy. Really was a nice treat on Valentine's day.

Definitely Wargroove out of these. Tetris is usually a top choice for me but I really don't like the online massive battle format they took with Tetris 99. I tried it, hated it, and deleted it. Heard they are going to update it with added modes so if they do that I will definitely check it out again.

@ALinkttPresent lol thanks. Even though I never played anything past 9 (8 before) I love JRPG (my favourite type of games and FF VII is my favourite game of all time) so not really a big accomplish for me hehe

FFIX aside (one of my favourite FFs, but long finished elsewhere), my February favourite is decidedly The Liar Princess and the Blind Prince. But of course you won't find it in NL charts because a massive fantasy predator doesn't move like Bayonetta.

@AlternateButtons You're welcome. If you really want to make it longer, you could try all three routes. Not at the same time, but you can save right before choosing a route to check out another one after playing too.

Seriously people, this game is worth the buy. Not only is it the best Advance Wars style game since Advance Wars itself, it has a great campaign, arcade modes, and puzzles. And that’s leaving out the very in depth editor that lets you make your own maps, entire campaigns with cutscenes, and basically additional modes. Examples of things accomplished with the editor include chess, football with dogs, a dating sim game, a betting game where you fight with the units you win, tower defense maps, and cooperative maps. And people are continually coming up with new ideas. The more people have this, the more creativity that will be poured into the user content, and at this point it’s near endless content. Plus it’s getting upcoming free updates. It’s awesome!

I've had my eye on Wargroove since it was announced, but I abstained from voting since I haven't actually played it or any of the recent e-shop releases yet. There are too many games! Right now I'm juggling Tales of Vesperia, Pokemon LG Eevee, Civ 6, Smash Ultimate, Horizon Chase Turbo, R-Type Dimensions and Katamari Damacy. I've got to finish at least a couple of them before I buy anything else.

Final Fantasy IX is one of my favorite games, but I picked wargroove since I didn't buy ffix again ( at $28 CAD.....more than what I paid for my steam version and ps4 version) I will definitively l pick up ffix once it goes on sale.